3 euros duty on small parcels from 1 January 2026

Who this will interest: non-EU e-commerce businesses.

Key point(s): parcels shipped from outside of the EU with a value of less than EUR 150 will be subject to a 3 euros per item duty from 1 July 2026.

Essentia’s take: A major change for non-EU retailers that are selling low value goods into the EU, who will have to brace themselves for some significant new costs.

Action points: Businesses impacted by this measure will need to consider whether they wish to continue fulfilling orders from abroad and pay the duty or import their goods in bulk in the EU to avoid the duty.

In more detail

The European Commission has announced it will introduce a 3 euros per item fixed customs duty for goods imported from outside of the EU in parcels with a value of less than 150 euros. The duty is expected to be applicable as of 1 July 2026 and is of a temporary nature, until the agreement for a permanent solution to eliminate the customs duty relief threshold altogether comes into application. It is however not clear how long this will be in practice or if it will be extended even past that date.

For context, discussions have been taking place for some time around a potential reform of the taxation of parcels with a value of less than 150 euros. There are currently no customs duties applied on such parcels, although VAT is assessed. However, it is widely believed that a significant number of non-EU sellers are undervaluing their goods in order to stay under the threshold which is harming EU sellers.

The European Commission had already stated it will remove the existing exemption from customs duty in 2026 (more details provided here) and there were discussions on the introduction of a handling fee of 2 euros for such parcels. In fact Romania has already introduced a 25 RON (roughly 5 euros) handling fee for each parcel as of 1 January 2026 (please see here for more details).

The introduction of a 3 euros per item duty was not in itself a surprise however its value (3 euros instead of the initial 2 euros discussed) and nature (applied per item, not per parcel) raised eyebrows.

For example, if a parcel worth 100 euros that has 10 products worth 10 euros each is imported into France a total of 20 euros in tax (VAT) would need to be paid either by the vendor or the customer. After 1 July 2026 the same parcel worth 100 euros would require a total payment of 56 euros in tax:

• 30 euros in customs duty (10 items x 3 euros each) plus
• 26 euros in VAT (VAT applies on top of the duties as well).

Given the relatively high value of the duty we would expect the majority of non-EU sellers to try and avoid paying the tax or limit the amounts owed. In practice this means that non-EU sellers may opt to import their goods in the EU in bulk, in which case the 3 euros per item duty would not apply and standard customs and VAT rules apply.

It is also possible some vendors will choose to further undervalue their parcels. It is not clear if the EU Member States have the ability to check whether these values are correct on a large scale (this seems doubtful).

An indirect result of this measure could be that the use of the IOSS registration will fall both in terms of number of users but also values reported using the system.

We expect further information from the European Commission to be published in the coming months.